Stereo vs. Multitrack

Q:  What if you only have one microphone and you still want to be fancy?  

A:  Multitrack recording!! 

Multitracking is when a producer takes two different recordings of the same material and plays them at the same time, usually with those elements spread out between the left and right sides. Multitracking only works with two different pieces of audio! If you copy a piece of audio and put one on the left and one on the right, it will just be a little bit louder than if you had a single recording right down the middle. 

Multitracking is a very powerful tool used when recording vocals, often heard in the chorus of song to make it sound huge and differentiate it from the single vocal recording in the verse. 

Most rock guitars are also multitracked a million times to make them sound massive. 

But, if you want to multitrack successfully, the two different recordings must have almost exactly the same timing, so you’ll need to sing or play your parts almost exactly the same way. It’s the almost that makes it work!

Singer-songwriter Elliott Smith almost always multitracked his vocals.

Here is a video of him performing the song “Between the Bars” with just one microphone. And here is that same song on his 1997 classic record “Either/Or.” Can you hear the difference?

Making full use of the stereo field is a indication of a knowledgeable, effective producer! You’ll get much deeper into the world of stereo in the next unit on mixing.